French court refuses to halt iPhone 4S sales

French court decision is disappointing for Samsung in global patent dispute.

Samsung said on Friday that it failed to convince a French court to impose a preliminary injunction on sales of Apple Inc.'s iPhone 4S. The update is the latest in an ongoing global patent war between both firms, which includes at least 30 legal cases.

Samsung has enjoyed some successes lately, with a U.S. court refusing to put in place an early sales ban on its Galaxy tablet products, and also seeing a sales ban in Australia overturned by the courts.

Following the French decision, Samsung said it still has to review the written grounds of the ruling and that it will continue to exercise all available options to protect its IP rights.

Apple has accused Samsung of slavishly cloning the iPhone and iPad with its Galaxy-branded line of smartphones and tablet PCs. It first sued Samsung in the United States in April. Samsung responded quickly, suing Apple for infringing on its own wireless technology patents.